


Unworthy

by Amelita



Category: Finder no Hyouteki | Finder Series
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harem, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Slavery, Bad BDSM Etiquette, Branding, Caning, Claiming, Concubine, Corporal Punishment, Dehumanization, Domdrop, Gags, M/M, Master/Slave, Painful Sex, Pony Play, Regret, Riding Crops, Sexual Slavery, Sexual Violence, Slavery, Subdrop, Whipping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-10
Updated: 2015-12-10
Packaged: 2018-05-05 22:27:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5392562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amelita/pseuds/Amelita
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Breaking a young colt is about more than simply jumping on its back and riding the heart out of him. It is about taming a wild spirit, directing it, not crushing it. It is a dance, a courtship between a untamed beast and the one who would dare to be his Master. It is an art and a love affair that only the finest of horsemen can understand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unworthy

[Inspirational Art](http://amelitaray.tumblr.com/image/135412456685)

-

He supposed it had always been this way. David and Bathshebah, Paris and Helen of Troy, Xerxes and Artaynte, Samson and Delilah. Men at the height of their power, with the world at their feet who had built great Kingdoms…. Kingdoms laid to ruin all because their leader became distracted by a pretty face. It was a tale of death and destruction that had been repeated time and time again throughout history. All this the Sultan knew.

But it made no difference.

His obsession continued, roaring out of control, obliterating all rational thoughts and cluttering his mind with useless thoughts. Thoughts of _him_. His own little Achilles heel.

The Sultan glared down over his Kingdom with hot golden eyes, his hands clenched at his sides. He would not succumb to this… to this weakness. He was the Emperor of the Three Cities and Ruler of all he surveyed. What he wanted, he took. His harem was filled with beauties from across the globe, all eager for his attentions and yet, all he could think of was _him_. The proud little slaveboy with flashing eyes, who held his head high and tossed it, as does a purebred stallion, telling him without words that even if he could be ridden, he could never be tamed.

Asami’s eyes narrowed as the gates to the palace opened and his men came through. The runaway slave was tied to the horse he had stolen, his feet lashed to the stirrups and his hands bound to the saddle. Akihito sat proud and tall, his back ramrod straight and his blue eyes blazing with anger. The slave glared at the Sultan’s tower as if blaming Asami for his failure to escape, as if blaming him for daring to recapture his property.

And Akihito WAS his property.

He simply refused to accept it. Little wild beast.

The knot of anxiety that had arisen in his throat the moment his guards had informed him of Akihito’s most recent escape, relaxed and the Sultan’s broad shoulders dropped as he breathed a sigh of relief. His favorite little stallion was back in the stables where he _belonged_.

Asami strode to his chambers and poured himself a glass of wine. Alcohol was of course, forbidden in the Ottoman Empire, but then so was homosexuality. The Sultan paid no mind to such rules, as they were written for the common people, not for ones such as he.

Akihito was being prepared for him at this very moment, bathed and perfumed, and then trussed and tied. Not punished though. Never punished. That was for the Sultan alone to do and no one would dare lay a finger on his favorite. And Akihito was his favorite. Had been from the moment Asami had laid eyes on him. He took him, as he took everything he wanted and had thought, with time, his obsession might fade. But it hadn’t.

The Sultan waited another ten minutes, pacing irritably, before making his way to the harem through the back passageway that connected his room to Akihito’s.

The room was dimly lit, with burning incense and candles, the heavy draperies pulled closed to block the dying light of the sun. It was warm, but not uncomfortably so. He and his slave were finally alone. Asami drew a deep breath of anticipation and stalked forward.

The blond quivered angrily like a mare tied in a breeding stock, trapped, pinned and helpless to do anything but submit to a stallion. Akihito lay on the bed with his hands tied over his hand and his pretty mouth gagged with a horsebit clenched between his pearl-like teeth. It was held in his mouth by a leather bridle that crossed his cheeks and wrapped around the back of his golden head. He lay with his cheek on the satin sheets, his wide lashed eyes open but unable to see the large man coming up behind him. The bed he lay on had been built just for him. The four posters of the gorgeous bed arched up and together, twisting like the vines of a gilded cage, framing the sacrificial altar for the most precious of beasts in the Sultan’s stable.

Both his knees and ankles were tied apart, fastened to a spreader bar which was fastened to the bed, thoroughly immobilizing his lower body. Under his delicate hips was placed a thick bolster pillow which had the effect of raising his beautiful bare bottom high and vulnerable.

It was perfection. Two perfect alabaster globes; round and luscious and plump. Perfect twin handfuls. The crack between them was dark and rosy, musky with the secrets of his lovely’s boy’s bowels. The Sultan placed his hands gently on his slave’s lower back and then drew his palms up the luscious slope of the boy’s ass until they rested almost reverently on the highest curve of those beautiful buttocks. He could feel the slightest curl and clench of muscles tightening under porcelain skin as he began to sweep his hands in circles, caressing, gently squeezing…. worshiping those two glorious mounds of flesh like a pagan at an altar.

The sides of his delectable butt rippled and clenched as Asami lowered his face in order to rub his smiling mouth and stubble rough cheeks over the slaveboy’s entire bottom. He planted enormous, wet, filthy kisses over the entire expanse of it. Laid claim to his beloved slave’s body. Every square inch of that impeccable flesh. Flawless. Pristine. Perfect.

Except for his brand.

It was placed halfway between his bottom and his back, on the smooth flesh to the right of his dimple. In the place where Asami’s thumb rested when he held the boy’s hips high and fucked into his beautiful body. While he rode him, he liked to stroke the upraised ridges of it with the pads of his fingers. The scrolls that surrounded his symbol. It was his family crest and all of his slaves wore it with pride. To be marked as the Sultan’s was a badge of honor and offered them considerable protection. Akihito was the only one who had ever had to be restrained to receive it.

He remembered strapping the boy down himself, the black leather straps cutting tightly into young skin. Asami remembered the sound of Akihito’s scream when he pressed the branding iron firmly into his flank and the smell of his flesh burning as the brand sunk in and became a part of him, forever marking him as property of the Sultan himself.

It could never be removed anymore than Akihito could escape him.

He pressed a gentle kiss to the mark before moving on to the many other delights of his young slave’s body.

Asami smirked in anticipation as he ran his tongue up the beautiful boy’s asscrack, bathing the musky cleft with juices from his mouth. He used his palms to part those fleshy cheeks wider, exposing Akihito’s entire pink crack to his gaze and affording him access to that pretty little pucker.The lush pink of his rosebud looked so appetizing. The Sultan’s eyes slanted closed as he pushed his nose into his crack, it was sensory overload. The way it felt, looked and smelled was amazing, and he simply had to taste it. He breathed deeply, like a connoisseur breathing the aromatics of a fine wine. After his nostrils were thick with the pungent perfume of Akihito’s asshole, he went for the taste, pushing his tongue against that tightly clenched starfish. He relished the feel of those two perfect globes of flesh trembling under his palms as he brushed his tongue ever so slightly over his slave’s delicate little taint.

With large hands the older man petted the slaveboy’s quivering flanks, his face buried between those plump cheeks as his tongue languidly traced Akihito’s twitching rectum, circling, teasing and then finally probing. He pushed, pushed and pushed against it until the muscles relax just enough for the tip of his tongue to squeeze gently inside. He pushed it in, then withdrew almost all the way, then pushed it in a little farther, then withdrew, then pushed inward again until finally every bit of his tongue was inside the boy. It felt like a band was wrapped around the base. He kneaded the fleshy cheeks like a baker kneading dough as his tongue’s inward, and outward, movement became faster, and faster, and faster until he was tongue fucking that scrumptious ass with the slurping relish of a fat man devouring a holiday ham.

The humiliated whimpers that escaped the boy’s gag were music to his ears and the swell of plump flesh between Akihito’s legs was glory to his eyes. He moved one hand to gently cup his erection. Finding the boy’s member engorged to his satisfaction, he reluctantly withdrew his tongue from his moist ass. Asami knelt between Akihito’s widespread legs, slender ankles each tied apart and withdrew a long silken sash from his robe. With one large hand he cupped Akihito’s penis and testicles and gently drew them down between his legs, away from his body enough that Asami could wrap the sash around them; once, twice and then tied in a bow. Secure, but not tight, as one might tie back a mare’s tail after a grooming. He tied one more knot to lock it in place and then tied the other end of the sash to the spreader bar. Now it was tight, tight enough that any movement of the slaveboy’s hips, whether side to side or up and down, would create and uncomfortable tugging sensation on his testicles.

Asami moved to stand over him. Akihito whimpered in his throat, expressing fearful anticipation of what was to come. The Sultan hummed low in his throat and reached down to stroke his thigh as one might soothe a frightened animal. Even as he stroked him though, his amber eyes burned with demonic light, tracing the pale flesh of Akihito’s back like a painter mapping a blank canvas.

He remembered the first time he had seen those two perfect globes, upturned and gleaming in the sun, a perfect pink heart that his father was busy blistering with the palm of a calloused hand.

The boy was wailing so loud as he was spanked that neither of them heard the Sultan or his men approach. Asami stopped and held his hand up to his men, indicating that they should stop too. The Royal and his guard sat silent on their dark steeds as the young boy kicked and struggled mightily, bucking against his father’s hold like a young bronco that refused to be tamed. His father was known for breeding and training the best Arabians in the land and it was obvious that he was employing similar techniques on his young son. The horse breeder pulled his arm back and cracked his hand against his son’s pale bottom. White flesh wobbled and a giant pink handprint appeared on it, nearly spanning both small cheeks. The young one cried out and twisted, pinned under the older man’s forearm. The man’s hand fell, again and again, the young boy lurching forward with each hard spank, his lovely voice crying out as he pressed his legs together and then spread them wide apart to ease the burn. As he wiggled and squirmed to escape his punishment, Asami could see his small undeveloped testicles and penis dangling between childish, jiggling thighs.

The Sultan had shifted on his horse, his cock hard and pinched in unyielding leather breeches. He could not remember the last time he had been so aroused. His reaction to the little boy’s distress was almost violent. He was instantly angered and appalled by the marks the father was leaving on his son’s bared ass. He stared though, frozen and unmoving, hypnotized by his desire until the man lost his temper and picked up a leather razor strap.

It was only then he sprang into action, vaulting off his horse and staying the man’s hand.

He stopped him not because he couldn’t bear to see the little one’s bottom beaten black and blue, in fact… he longed for it. It wasn’t that the marks that angered him so….. it was the fact that he was not the one who had made them. It was in that instant that Asami decided that the only one to ever mark that pale flesh would be him. That wild little colt would be tamed only by his own hand. He knew then the boy would belong to him.

The child looked at him like a savior, with worshipful blue eyes, tears in long lashes, his cheeks red as he quivered and sobbed. Yes, he looked at him as a hero. But Asami had no intention of being the boy’s hero. He left that day with two expensive Arabian stallions and the most magnificent little animal he had ever purchased seated before him on his saddle, with his sore little bottom pressed innocently against the Sultan’s groin.

Oh yes, Akihito was the most favored of all Asami’s steeds and it was perhaps because, for all the Sultan’s trying, the lovely little colt remained thoroughly unbroken.

Despite being being the most beloved of the Sultan’s harem slaves, Akihito was willful, stubborn, disobedient and as likely to snap at his Master’s fingers than eat from his hand. It wasn’t that he was ill-tempered. He had observed him from afar, and the truth was Akihito was in fact very sweet-tempered with everyone _but_ his Master. The problem was simply that the boy saw himself as free. Despite the Sultan’s very clear ownership, the slaveboy still behaved as if he had no claim over him, like a wild stallion that had not yet recognized its Master. And the more Akihito fought his ownership, the more determined Asami became to claim him.

It was an obsession. As evidenced by the fact that since Akihito had grown old enough to join his harem, Asami had not laid with another slave.

Night after night, he found himself drawn to Akihito's bed, to his young nubile body and angry, flashing eyes.

And each night, Akihito resisted him as heartily as he had the night before.

Perhaps he should cast him aside and take another, Asami thought petulantly, his eyes narrowed angrily on the boy’s frail form. After all, it wasn’t as if Akihito appreciated his favor or done anything to be worthy of it. The boy was given his own private stable, all the best food and care. He had his own personal groomer to take care of his every need. His life was one of ultimate luxury and yet all he wanted was to run free with the peasants. Any opening, any opportunity he was given, Akihito paid him back by running away.

But his Master found him, he always did, and Asami would lead his wayward little colt back to his pen, taking care to secure the bridle about that lovely neck even tighter.

Short of chaining him to the bed, he didn't know what else to do.

The Sultan gazed at the boy’s beautiful body with admiration. Akihito was lean without being skinny and strong without being muscular. He was all fine lines and long limbs. Not good for hard labor, but fast as lightning when he chose to be. But then, the Sultan had always preferred racehorses to workhorses.

He reached for the leather crop setting on the table beside the bed and took care to pass the implement before Akihito’s frightened eyes. It had a supple leather tongue attached to a slender black cane with a handle. Depending on how he wielded the implement, he could strike with either the tongue or the cane. He only caned Akihito when the boy had done something that put Asami in a particularly foul mood. Stealing one of the Sultan’s black Arabians from the stables and running away yet again certainly qualified. It didn’t help that the boy had taken the most treacherous route possible, putting both himself and Asami’s men in harm’s way. He felt compelled to send a strong message to the boy, to ward off future, potentially more egregious acts of rebellion. It didn’t help that Asami’s heart was full of jealousy and heart-broken rejection; feelings that the Sultan pushed down in preference of his anger.

The powerful man smiled and palmed his cock in anticipation as he watched that plump, perfect butt shiver in fear. Akihito’s tiny asshole was clenched tight in anticipation. Though he never punished Akihito purely for his own amusement, he would freely admit that he derived great pleasure from thrashing that pretty butt.

Fortunately for Asami, Akihito never failed gave his Master plentiful reasons to punish him.

The Sultan’s voice was smooth like velvet when he spoke to Akihito, and terrifyingly calm, “You were very naughty habibi. You know I must punish you now.”

His pretty slave tossed his head like a spirited mare, angry and proud. His blue eyes flashed and he fought the bit in his mouth, pushing at it with his lips and tongue and teeth. The angry words he tried to speak were muffled and intelligible, though that probably worked in his favor Asami mused. No need to add to his punishment. Akihito was not good at holding his tongue and Asami was already planning on leaving his bottom so raw he wouldn’t be able to sit comfortably for weeks.

“I would hold very still now darling, if I were you. I have no wish to see you injured, but then that, is entirely up to you.”

Akihito could not see the flash of white teeth as Asami smiled cruelly. With his genitals tied the way they were, Akihito really had no choice to stay perfectly still for his whipping, ass up, legs spread. If he moved, the pain in his testicles would be excruciating. Of course, this was a kindness, that would prevent Asami from striking something more delicate if Akihito moved unexpectedly, but Asami somehow doubted the boy would see it that way.

He stroked the porcelain pale flesh of his bottom once more before raising the crop high in the air. He arched the crop above his shoulder and cracked it down, slicing the air and landing the cane with a heavy thwack across the centre of the slaveboy’s glorious rump. A perfect horizontal welt bloomed across his bare ass, like the horizon on a painting, around which all the other brushstrokes would be centered. The line was bright blood red at the sitbones and then faded a bit as it went into the crease of Akihito’s ass and curved around his hips. It was stark against the pale white.

He laid another across the swell of his sitbones and then up towards the dip of his back before moving down again towards the soft, tender skin of Akihito’s upper thighs. The crop is flexible, but dense and the shaft bit deeply into the slaveboy’s flesh with each hit. Akihito yelped and howled his misery beneath his gag and the muscles in his body undulated as they flexed and contracted in an attempt to keep himself still. He succeeded mostly, but every now and then bucked and the rope tugged painful on his tender ballsack.

Asami did not count the strokes, nor did he have a number in his head to strive for. He knew the boy’s body better than his own and he would know when enough was enough. He knew when to stop. The welts were even spaced now, blood red line after line cascading from his lower back to the tops of his pale thighs. Asami smiled as he ran his finger over the bumps and Akihito hissed in pain. His inner thighs pulled and trembled in exertion. The Sultan could see a sheen of sweat beginning to break out on his lower back. He moved around to look into the slaveboy’s eyes. They were dry and full of impotent fury. Asami smirked.

He pulled his arm back and let the crop fly again, now beginning to layered marks over existing welts, like crosshatching, shading the boy’s bottom until it was scarlet. Where the lines met, blood blisters bloomed. Akihito wailed behind his gag, his voice full of both white hot agony and anger. Again and again he lashed him with the full of his considerable strength behind the torturous crop, caning his slave’s ass with an almost systematic precision. Each additional line lay parallel to the previous and only millimeters away. Only when Akihito’s cries began to grow weaker and hoarse did Asami slow the beating.

He moved again to stand by the slave boy’s head. His pretty face was buried in the covers. He took deep, hitching breaths, bordering on sobs. It sounded as if he were crying but when Asami nudged his chin up, there were no tears on his cheeks.

The Sultan shook his head, “Still not sorry habibi?”

Akihito answered only by closing his lovely eyes and stubbornly turning away from him. Asami’s hard jaw clenched with a pain he refused to acknowledge. He moved again to stand between Akihito’s widepread legs. With false tenderness, he untied the black sash that constricted the base of the boy’s genitals. He rubbed them carefully to assess blood flow and then let them hang free. The boy would not be able to stop himself from jerking from this next punishment and Asami had no wish to geld his magnificent little beauty.

The entirety of his ass was blood red, covered in welts and livid blue bruises but the center of his crease was unmarked. The flesh of his inner sex looked pristine, almost virginal. The muscles in the Sultan’s jaw clenched and then released and then clenched again as he stared at Akihito’s tender bud. He had caned almost every part of a slave’s anatomy, but never directly on their anus.

He took careful aim, using only a fraction of his strength and snapped the tip of the leather against Akihito’s tender, exposed hole. The muscles in the slave’s slim thighs jerked spastically as his entire body lurched forward in the physical embodiment of a scream. Asami slapped it again and again, beating the boy directly on his sex with the cruel tip of the crop. Akihito screamed behind the bit in his mouth, bucking his hips wildly up and down, side to side so that the Sultan had to be excruciatingly careful not to hit his jiggling ballsack or plump cock. He struck the slaveboy’s taint, landing a blow diagonally across it and then again, working his way up that dusky crease until the leather again cracked against the soft, pink flesh of Akihito’s boycunt. He hit him repeatedly between the legs until his anus was almost unrecognizable as the tiny pink clench of muscle it had been moments ago. It was now so inflamed, so puffy, swollen and red and full of blood it almost looked like a fat woman’s cunt.

His slave’s taut back cried tears of sweat, the droplets ran down his wet neck, between trembling shoulder blades and into the hollow of his spine. His face was soaked with tears when Asami lifted Akihito’s chin to gaze into his eyes. The Sultan traced his lovely slave’s sweat soaked temples, kissed his cheeks and thumbed the tears from his eyes. His eyes were full of tender compassion, “Oh habibi, my precious, do you yield? Just tell me you are sorry, tell me you’ll never run from me again. Tell me beloved one, you know thats all you have to do to end this torment.”

His slave was mute, but his red-rimmed eyes spoke volumes. They glared, still full of stubborn pride and angry spirit, wordlessly denouncing his Master’s claim on him.

Cold anger clenched in Asami’s belly as he stood tall. His voice was hard as steel when he spoke, “Very well then.”

Asami shed his robes and his cock stood proud and immense between his thighs. He slicked himself with fragrant oils and the knelt between Akihito’s tied legs. The boy’s ass was turning purple, swollen and covered with welts. His poor little asshole was swollen and engorged with blood from the beating it had sustained. Fucking him was going to be inhumanly painful. Asami decided to give him one last chance to escape.

The Sultan leaned over to speak softly in his boy’s pretty ear, “It doesn’t have to be this way beloved, I would hold you tenderly, make love to you endlessly, pleasure you until you cried for joy. I would place you on a pedestal high above all others, make you my queen, my kaden, lay the world at your feet, if only you would be mine, as you were meant to be.”

Akihito shook his golden head and Asami frowned at the colt’s impudence before plunging his cock into the boy’s beaten sex. It was exquisite, hot and tender and puffy, swollen even tighter and squeezing his cock like a wet glove. Each thrust battered the boy’s poor bruised ass more fully, and Akihito thrashed and pulled at his bonds to get away from the white hot pain emanating from his bottom. His hips jolted, lurching and twisting like a wild bronco desperately trying to throw off its rider. Asami clung to his skinny hips with strong hands. While equally matched in determination, Akihito was sorely outmatched by Asami’s strength. The Sultan pinned the young one to the mattress, hands and feet tied as he pistoned into the slaveboy’s poor welted asshole. Each time Asami’s hips smacked against his bruised bottom it was like being spanked yet again. Asami gritted his teeth in frustration because he knew the pain had to be excruciating. The hot wet pull-push of the boy’s clenching bottom was driving him to a pleasure like no other but this wasn’t for sexual pleasure, not his and not Akihito’s. This was punishment, punishment for Akihito for fighting the inevitable so hard, for resisting, for running… but most of all, for rejecting Asami and all he had to offer.

It was punishment for Asami himself for he knew, deep in his heart, if he were a better Master, Akihito would have yielded to his hand by now.

He ejaculated deep into the boy’s bowels, beating the boy’s soft insides with his cock and forcing Akihito’s own orgasm. The Sultan rode him through both, turning both of their pleasure to pain. Asami moved like a machine, unyielding, unceasing.

It wasn’t too much longer until finally, exhausted and overwhelmed, Akihito went limp beneath him. His entire body relaxed in his bonds and he began to wail incoherently behind his gag. Tears streamed from tightly closed lashes and Asami stilled his movements as he removed the bridle from Akihito’s face. A string of saliva pulled with the gag as he removed it from Akihito’s swollen lips. The boy continued to sob as Asami untied his hands and released his ankles from the spreader. Tears poured from beneath his lashes as Asami manhandled the little slave boy into his lap, mindful of his poor beaten bottom. Engorged with blood, it felt red-hot even under Asami’s palm. Akihito wept like a child in his arms and never before had he felt so small or vulnerable to the Sultan and the powerful man was reminded that truly, the sixteen year old was little more than a boy.

Slowly Akihito’s sobs quieted and he stilled as if remembering just whose shoulder he was crying on. Asami kissed his head and threaded his fingers through the sweat-soaked silk at his temples

“Now will you call me Master?” he asked softly.

Even while swollen, lashes clumped with tears, Akihito’s blue eyes flashed weakly at him, “Never”

Asami's stomach clenched in his disappointment for he was at the end of all he knew to gain his slave's submission.

He sighed heavily, “Why do you fight so hard? Is your life with me so bad, so hard?”

The boy shook his head, “Its- its not. Its… just…”

For the first time, Akihito was voluntarily talking to him. Asami held his breath waiting for him to finish.

“I- I never got to choose.”

“Most don’t.” Asami said simply.

Akihito looked at him sharply, “What do you mean?”

“Most people have no choice in all the most important things that shape their lives. You didn’t get to chose to be born a boy or a girl, a King or a pauper. You didn’t get to chose your parents, where you live or what you would have been. All those things were already determined for you and your marriage would have been arranged by your father. Why is what I did when I took you so much different?”

The boy was silent.

“You cannot control what happens to you in this world. You are one tiny boat, with a tiny oar on a vast sea that has power far beyond yours. The best you can do it control how you react to it. You can choose to be happy, or not.”

“I’m a slave. I _belong_ to you! How can I ever be happy?”

Asami shrugged as he laid back on the bed and he propped his head up in hands, “We all belong to someone. I belong to my subjects as they belong to me. Sons and daughters to fathers and those same fathers are slaves to their families. Mothers belong to their children and wives to their husbands and husbands to their wives. _You_ simply belong to _me_.”

Akihito's jaw thrust out mutinously, “What if I don’t want to belong to you?”

The Sultan sighed again, “That is not something you have control over. I will not let you go. If you run, I will chase you, I will catch you and I will punish you. But you can choose to accept your life as it is. You can choose to be happy here. I care for you, more than I intended. It is my hope, that perhaps someday, you might come to care for me as well.”

He drew a sharp breath as his careless words betrayed more than he intended.

The boy went very, very still and Asami was suddenly reminded of a wild horse the first time it gazed into a human’s eyes. Asami also held very still, returning his gaze calmly.

Akihito didn’t seem to know how to respond to that, but he let Asami turn him over onto his belly and rub him down with a healing salve. His muscles twitched as the Sultan rubbed the stingy poultice over his abused backside. Asami lifted his hands and legs and examined the scratches on his feet. He clicked his tongue as a horse’s owner might over a chipped hoof and massaged some salve into those too. He finished by cleaning his back and combing his tangled hair. He had never been one to ride a horse hard and put it away wet. He fed the boy sweet fruits and left him clean and dry and comfortable, tucked into a bed fit for royalty.

A strange sense of melancholia fell over him as he stood to leave. The silence between them was oppressive but Asami didn’t know how to fill it. He knew how to make a slave moan with pleasure, scream with ecstacy, cry with pain…. but he didn’t know how to _talk_ to one. This was the first time he wanted to. He wanted to say something, something to bridge the gap between a Sultan and a slave. Between himself and…. Akihito.

He turned to leave, opening the door to his room and was stopped by a soft voice from behind him.

“You can stay. If you want.”

Asami’s back stiffened at the timid invitation. Of course he could stay if he wanted to. He was the Sultan, Akihito was his slave and this was his castle. He could go anywhere he pleased, sleep anywhere he wanted. And yet, it was unheard of for the Sultan to spend the night with a concubine. But then Akihito wasn’t _just_ a concubine, was he? He moved to sit on the bedside. Akihito’s face was filled with apprehension and hope, even despite all that Asami had done to him. He looked so young and fragile and Asami was stricken with guilt. Two words the young Sultan had never spoken before in his life filled the air of the chamber.

“I’m sorry.”

The awkward tension hung in the air between them. It was unheard of, for a Sultan to apologize to a slave and they were both acutely aware of it. Akihito' lower lip trembled and then he sucked it into his mouth with a shy nod. Asami released the breath he had been holding the moment the boy accepted his apology. Akihito scooted over carefully with soft round eyes and watched the King lay down beside him. They spoke no more than night, but Asami woke with his hand holding Akihito’s and in the morning, the boy didn’t pull away. As many times as Asami and Akihito had had sex, it was as intimate as they had ever been. For the first time, they faced each other and talked with voices soft as the sun’s rays peeked over the horizon. When Akihito smiled at him for the first time, it was like watching the sun rise in the sky and Asami's heart fluttered in his chest.

It was then Asami finally began to understand that one could not break a wild horse by beating it, punishing it or forcing his will upon it. Taming a stallion was about gaining its trust and respect and proving himself to be worthy of the ride. The surrender had to be earned and a partnership forged. To truly master a horse, his Master had to love him and be loved _by_ him, in return.

He wasn't worthy of calling himself Akihito's Master.

But he would be.

 

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[Inspirational Music: More than Anything](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ie3p_ZEkhtE)

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